UK Airport Installs Bluetooth Beacons For AR-Based Indoor Navigation

Indoor based navigation isn’t new and in some instances, Google Maps actually offers up such features. However it isn’t always ideal, but it seems that over in the UK’s Gatwick Airport, they have recently installed 2,000 Bluetooth beacons within the airport that is meant to help facilitate indoor navigation through the use of augmented reality.

As you can see in the photo above, these Bluetooth beacons will help to guide users to where they need to go through their smartphone’s camera. This works a lot better than a top down view of a map since it uses real-life imagery. It is also said to be pretty accurate with an accuracy of up to 3 meters.

In addition to being able to be used as an indoor navigation tool, these Bluetooth beacons will also help to serve reminders to passengers or notifications, such as reminding them to get to their gate on time depending on how far they are, or it can also be used by retailers to help announce promotions or offers that passengers might be interested in.

The Gatwick Airport isn’t the first airport to rely on Bluetooth beacons as other airports and even airlines have offered up similar features, although they are the first that use the beacons for AR-based wayfinding which seems useful and hopefully something we can see catch on in the future.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Augmented Reality (AR)